As they walked across the room to a group of furniture, he hummed a bar of Elvis’s song about suspicion.
“You do have a cop’s mind, don’t you?”
She looked at him as they took a seat on the chintzcovered couch. “I’ve learned you’re a man who’ll do a lot of maneuvering to get what he wants.”
He laughed. “Well, as much as I’d like to be alone with you, I haven’t gagged Lilah and tossed her into the closet. She’s in the kitchen getting the last of the meal ready.”
“Shouldn’t we be helping her?”
Lucas shook his head. “You stay out of Lilah’s kitchen just like you stay out of her files. She has her own way of doing things.”
The sound of a door opening caught Jenny’s attention. She turned to see Lilah entering the room carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
“There you are, Jenny, dear. I thought I heard voices.” She placed the tray on the coffee table in front of Jenny and Lucas. “I thought you two might like to nibble while I finish putting everything on the table.”
“I’ll be glad to help,” Jenny offered. She started to rise from the couch. Lilah quickly motioned her down.
“You just keep Lucas out of my hair. That will be help enough.”
“Lilah, what are you talking about? I couldn’t get in that beehive with a jackhammer,” he told the older woman.
Not a bit insulted, she patted his cheek. “No, but you can get into my cooking pots.”
She swished her way out of the room. Lucas leaned forward and took a cracker from the tray. While he dipped it into something creamy, Jenny said, “You two have a strange relationship for a boss and secretary. I noticed that at work she calls you Mr. Lowrimore and here she calls you Lucas.”
Lucas shrugged. “She likes us to be professional at work. And away from it, I let her be my mother and she lets me be her son.”
Jenny looked at her clasped hands and thought of all the times she wished she’d had someone like Lilah. Someone to give her the courage to free herself of Marcus’s abuse. “That must be nice. To be that close to someone.”
“It is.”
The lost, yearning look on her face reminded Lucas of the children he met with in the park. “I’m sure you have many friends, too, Jenny.”
She glanced at him. “I have several friends in the department. My closest friend, Savanna, went to New Orleans to spend Thanksgiving with relatives. But I don’t have anyone like Lilah.”
“Your mother doesn’t invite you to spend the holidays with her?”
Jenny let out a harsh laugh. “I doubt Ruby knows how to turn on the oven. Much less bake a turkey.”
He took a bite of the cracker. “I’ve noticed you call her Ruby instead of Mother.”
Jenny shrugged. “That’s the way she wants it. It makes her feel too old, you see, to have a thirty-something-yearold daughter call her Mother.”
Lucas shook his head. “Sounds like a hell of a woman. Why do you even acknowledge her?”
Her eyes remaining on her lap, Jenny said, “I admit Ruby isn’t much of a mother. But she could have chosen not to give birth to me, even all those years ago. And she always kept a roof over my head and food in my mouth. That’s more than a lot of kids get. You should know that, Lucas.”
Yes, Lucas did know it. But just like the kids he tried to help, Jenny had deserved more than food and shelter while she’d been growing up. She deserved more than that now. And he desperately wanted to be the one to give it to her.
He dipped another cracker and offered it to Jenny. She shook her head, so he ate it himself.
“I want you to know,” he told her, “I didn’t have anything to do with Lilah’s inviting you here today.”
Her heart started the hard, sickening thud it always did when he brought up anything personal between them. “I know. If I thought you had, I wouldn’t have come.”
He frowned at her. “Do you go around lying to yourself all the time, or do you just do it around me?”
Jenny vaulted from the couch and walked over to an old upright piano. Photos were sitting on the closed lid. She picked up one that had been taken when Lilah was in her late teens or early twenties. A smiling man in an air force uniform had his arm slung lovingly around her shoulder.
She continued to look at the pair of young lovers while her heart ached with sad regret. “I came today because of Lilah,” she said, her throat tight.
“Oh, well, sure, I should have known that,” he said, his voice suddenly dripping with sarcasm. “I mean, you two are such old bosom buddies, you naturally couldn’t turn down her invitation.”
Anger spurted through Jenny, and she whirled away from the piano to face him. “No! I couldn’t turn her down. I was touched that she didn’t want me spending the holiday alone. So what’s your problem? Do you wish I’d stayed home? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
He pushed himself up from the couch. In two strides he was by her side, his thumb and forefinger drawing her face to his. “I’m not trying to tell you anything of the sort! I’m trying to get you to admit you wanted to see me again. Why can’t you?”
She’d been crazy to come here, Jenny thought. She’d been deluding herself to think she could be around Lucas, even for one minute, and remain indifferent to him.
“Because it…isn’t right. Nor wise.”
His dark brown eyes grew even darker as he studied her face. “It’s always wise to be honest with yourself, Jenny.”
“You think I’m not?”
For an answer, Lucas bent his head and gave her a hot, lingering kiss.
“Maybe that will help you make up your mind,” he murmured, his lips hovering just above hers.
Jenny drew in a deep breath, and with it the clean, masculine scent of him. Her senses were reeling. That was something she couldn’t deny to him or herself. He made her want him and all the things she’d never had, like a real family.
But once Jenny had finally gotten a divorce from Marcus, she’d taken a vow to remain a free woman. She was never going to let herself be hurt by another man. She had to remember that. No matter how much Lucas made her want him.
Stepping away, she turned her back on him and closed her eyes. “You must like fighting losing battles,” she said her voice gruff with lingering desire.
Behind her, Lucas laughed softly. “Oh, I’m not losing, Jenny. In the next few days you’re going to wake up and realize that. I always get what I want. And I want you.”
He might want her, Jenny thought, tears stinging her eyelids. But he would never have her.
In the next few days she was going to have to wake him up and make him see that. Or they were both going to lose.
Chapter Eight
Lilah looked like a woman who’d spent most of her day in a beauty salon rather than a kitchen. But after one bite of her corn-bread dressing, Jenny was thoroughly impressed with the older woman’s cooking skills.
“Lilah, this is absolutely delicious. Working as Lucas’s secretary didn’t teach you how to cook like this.”
Obviously pleased with Jenny’s praise, Lilah moved her ringed hand up to pat her carefully coiffured hair.
“Working for Lucas has taught me about patience. My mother, God rest her, taught me how to cook. You know, Jenny, back when I was very young, us girls were reared to be wives and mothers. That was our destined career. Fifty years ago, I would have never dreamed I’d wind up being a secretary instead of a wife and grandmother.”
Jenny hadn’t always thought of herself as being only a policewoman, either. But that’s the way things had turned out.
“You were never married, Lilah?”
“Oh, yes, my dear. I was married once. John was the most exciting man I’d ever met. Still is.”
Jenny glanced across the candlelit table at Lucas. She’d have to say he was the most exciting, sexy man she’d ever encountered. In fact, that last kiss was still sizzling the ends of her toes.
“The airman you were looking at in the p
hoto with Lilah was her husband, John,” he told Jenny.
“Oh, yes, I remember the photo.”
“That picture was taken in 1943,” Lilah said. “We’d been married three years then. I was twenty at the time. He was twenty-five and a B-52 pilot in the air force. The next year, he was killed in a bombing mission over Germany.”
“How sad,” Jenny said.
Lilah smiled and shook her head. “I don’t like to think of it as sad, Jenny. He was my one true love, and we got to share four years with each other. That’s much more than most people ever have in their lives.”
“Lilah’s never remarried because she can’t find anyone to equal John,” Lucas told Jenny, then grinned at Lilah. “But you aren’t afraid to look, are you, Lilah?”
The older woman laughed at Lucas’s question. “Of course I’m not afraid to look. John’s death taught me to live life to the fullest, and I intend to follow that philosophy.”
Lucas darted a look at Jenny. Her ex-husband wasn’t dead. But she was allowing the trauma he’d put her through to jade her outlook on life. “It’s too bad we can’t all live by that philosophy. This world would be a happier place.”
Jenny stared at the cut glass goblet in front of her plate and wished she could tell Lilah that her own husband hadn’t died. Jenny herself was the one who had died during their short marriage. Like a rose battered by the elements, she’d lost the beauty of life.
“Now, Lucas,” Lilah spoke up. “Each of us is different. Not everyone jumps straight into things like we do. Some of us had rather experience a little candlelight before jumping straight into the fire.”
Jenny glanced at the older woman. Did she know that Lucas wanted to marry her? Darn it, Jenny thought as she stabbed her fork into a candied sweet potato, it didn’t matter what Lilah knew or what philosophy she lived by. Jenny wasn’t going to jump into the fire with Lucas. She wasn’t going to share any candlelight with him, either.
In spite of her constant awareness of Lucas, Jenny enjoyed the Thanksgiving meal. Lilah was entertaining, to say the least, and the food was mouth-watering. Especially to Jenny, whose job forced her to eat large doses of microwaved and fast food.
After the three of them had dessert and coffee in the living room, Lilah agreed to let Jenny help her clean up the mess. She was drying the last of the pots and pans when Lucas sauntered into the cozy kitchen.
Whipping the tea towel from Jenny’s hand, he began drying a large roasting pan. “Well, Oklahoma is a touchdown behind and there’s three minutes to go in the fourth quarter. I don’t know whether the Sooners can pull it off or not.”
Lilah gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Football! That is the most ridiculous sport. All I see is twelve men jumping on the other twelve to make a big pile. Now boxing, that’s a real man’s sport.”
“Eleven men, Lilah. Not twelve.” He looked at Jenny and winked. “Lilah loves boxing. She was ringside when Oklahoma’s own Tommy Morrison punched out Big George Foreman for the heavyweight title. That year my bonus to her was a ticket to the fight. She chose it over a week in Hawaii.”
“Well,” Lilah said with a sniff, “Hawaii is there to see anytime. I wanted to see the main event.”
Lucas put the roasting pan on the counter and tossed the tea towel inside it.
“Speaking of seeing things,” Lucas told the older woman, “I want to show Jenny the downtown shelter. Would you mind if we ate and ran?”
Lilah patted his arm. “Go on. I get an eyeful of you every day. You take Jenny and show her what good work you’ve been doing. Even though it is killing you,” she added.
Jenny stared at the two of them. She didn’t want to go anywhere with Lucas! She’d already spent more time with him today than she’d intended. But how could she refuse to go while Lilah was looking on like a proud mother?
“I really should be getting home, Lucas,” Jenny told him. “I’ve got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.”
“You can follow me in your car. That will save the time of driving back to get it. And I promise not to keep you out past midnight.”
The look he was giving her was devilish and daunting. Jenny was suddenly reminded of Lilah’s words about jumping straight into the fire. “Okay, I’ll take a look at the shelter. But only for a few minutes.”
Ignoring the victorious little smile on Lucas’s face, Jenny went over to Lilah and kissed the woman’s smooth cheek. “Thank you for such a lovely meal, Lilah. I hope you’ll let me fix dinner for you sometime. I don’t have a whole lot of cooking skills, but I can put on a pretty good feed when I try.”
Lilah hugged Jenny’s shoulder. “I’ll be there.”
The two women exchanged goodbyes, then Lucas took Jenny by the elbow and urged her out of the kitchen.
“You know,” Jenny said as the two of them walked down the drive to their parked vehicles, “every time I get around you, I end up doing things I never intended to do.”
Laughing, Lucas opened the car door for her. “And every time I get around you I don’t get to do nearly half of what I want to do.”
Thank goodness, Jenny thought, as she slid onto the car seat. Lucas shut the door, then with a little wave went to his own vehicle. Jenny backed out onto the street and waited for him to take the lead.
Since it was a quiet holiday afternoon, traffic was practically nonexistent, allowing them to make the trip to the shelter in less than five minutes. Jenny parked behind Lucas, then waited out on the sidewalk while he unlocked the front entrance.
“This place isn’t far from your business,” Jenny remarked as the two of them stepped inside the building.
“Three blocks,” he said. “I used to store tires and truck parts in here.”
“Well, it certainly doesn’t look like a warehouse now,” Jenny said as she gazed around the large, family-type room.
He walked over to where she was standing, and Jenny rested her eyes on his face. “I know this is probably boring to you,” he said, “all this kid stuff that I do with my extra time and money. Back at Lilah’s it was pretty obvious you didn’t want to come here.”
She took a deep breath and tried not to notice how good he looked. Not that there was anything different about him today. He wasn’t wearing anything special. Just a long-sleeved white shirt with a pair of blue jeans and black roper boots. He didn’t have on a belt or any sort of jewelry or accessory to add spark to his appearance. But then Lucas hardly needed help in that department, she thought. One little grin on his face was like the flash of a thousand diamonds.
“Nothing about children bores me, Lucas. And I think what you’re doing here is—well, it’s far above admirable. But I…”
A wry smile on his mouth, he moved a step closer and lifted her hand in his. “You just don’t want to be around me any more than you have to.”
He said it as a statement rather than a question, as though he knew exactly what was going on in her mind. A few minutes ago, Jenny would have hastily agreed with him. But now, as she looked at him, she knew that wasn’t quite true. She did like to be with Lucas. In fact, when she was with him she felt more alive, more like a woman than she ever had in her entire life. But on the other hand, she was desperately afraid of him. Without any effort at all he could tear her scarred heart into tiny little shreds.
“I only said no to your proposal, Lucas. I didn’t tell you I disliked you.”
A slow grin spread across his face and he swiped a hand across his brow. “Whew! I’m glad to know I haven’t been kissing a woman who didn’t like me. As for the marrying part, well, that’s still under negotiation. I want you for my wife.”
“Only in your dreams,” she told him.
Still grinning, he took her by the arm and led her out of the room. “Don’t count on it, my sweet Jenny. I used to act as a mediator for the trucker’s union. I can be powerfully persuasive when I want to be.”
No doubt he’d swayed many minds in the boardroom. But Jenny figured his powers of persuasion would be far greater in
the bedroom.
“You’ve been a lot of things, Lucas. A marine, a truck driver, a successful businessman. But you haven’t been a husband.”
They entered a long corridor where separate sleeping units had been built. Lucas opened the door of the first room and ushered Jenny in. She was immediately struck by the bright, happy colors.
“You’re right. I haven’t been a husband. But I’m working to change that,” he pointed out.
Desperate to put space between them, Jenny began to move around the small room. When she reached the foot of the single bed, her hand smoothed over the shiny red metal railing. “You’re thirty-five years old,” she told him. “You’re used to doing what you want, when you want. You might not like having to accommodate a wife’s wishes.”
Lucas’s eyes traveled slowly over her. He didn’t know whether it was the sensual curves of her body, the bright flaming crown of hair or the toughness of her voice that had attracted him the first day he’d met her. Whatever it was, that attraction had grown tenfold. His feelings for her had grown even more. He loved her. It was that simple. Yet when he saw that stubborn resistance on her face as it was at this moment, he knew nothing about their relationship was simple.
“I think the accommodating would be very easy—if you were my wife.”
Her eyes jerked to his, and Lucas could see that just the idea of them being intimately linked was enough to shake her.
“I hardly think so, Lucas. My work schedule constantly changes. I’m called out in the middle of the night, on holidays or anytime I’m needed. You think that would be easy to deal with?”
“You don’t have to remind me of your job, Jenny. I haven’t forgotten, even for one minute, that you’re a policewoman. But I love you and I’ve come to the decision that I’m not going to let your career become an issue between us. You’re a policewoman and your job is important to you. I’d never ask or expect you to give it up for me.”
He was getting too personal, too generous and understanding for Jenny’s peace of mind. She refused to believe that any man could love her that much.
Wanted: Wife Page 12
